Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Göteborg : Univ. , 2006. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis--University of Florida. / Vita. Includes bibliography.

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-221)

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-41).

Thesis--Wisconsin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 34-35).

No description available.

Few interpersonal and organizational communication studies examine the professional and organizational aspects of career satisfaction among minority physicians. Due to the underrepresenation of minority physicians, most studies resort to comparing aggregate groups of minority physicians in juxtaposition to non-minority physicians. These studies fail to uncover possible communication differences, which originate from cultural dissimilarities between disaggregate racial/ethnic groups. Even fewer studies examine physicians' written communication to open-ended survey questions about career satisfaction/dissatisfaction between disaggregate racial/ethnic minority groups and non-minorities. This study specifically examines written responses to two open-ended survey questions about professional and organizational dissatisfaction and compares responses from disaggregate minority physician and non-minority physicians. Participants were divided into five response-driven categories of race/ethnicity as follows: Asian/Pacific Islander, Black/African American, Indian/Pakistani, Hispanic, and White/Non-Hispanic. The population consists of 1849 members of the medical staff roster of a Southeastern, U.S., not-for-profit hospital group. Primary findings indicate the presence of recurrent themes among disaggregate minority physician racial/ethnic groups' responses. Significant variation exists between responses from disaggregate minority physician racial/ethnic groups and non-minority physicians. Results imply that open-ended methods of data collection are essential to gaining knowledge about ways cultural dissimilarities between disaggregate minority racial/ethnic groups affect communication and satisfaction. Understanding more about cultural dissimilarities is necessary for: improving data collection quality; recruiting and retaining minority physicians; and reducing healthcare disparities among minorities.

Healthcare in the United States experienced a remarkable transformation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While this transformation is well documented in descriptive historical accounts there are few empirical studies investigating the mechanisms through which reform was disseminated or the affects of the reform on healthcare. To this end, this dissertation examines four issues related to changes in the American healthcare industry during the early 1900's.Chapter 2 examines changes in medical education. This chapter provides a qualitative analysis of motivations behind the medical education reforms in America and an empirical analysis of the shakeout of medical schools that occurred from 1905 to 1920. Licensing laws and medical school reviews were found to have influenced exiting decisions of many medical schools. Reform of medical education in America was followed by a disproportionate decline of physician supply in rural areas. Along these lines, Chapter 3 provides a case study of the geographic distribution of physicians during the early 20th Century. Data on individual physicians was compiled to analyze variation in physician counts across counties and to investigate out-migration of rural county physicians. This analysis indicates physicians were drawn more and more to areas offering better financial opportunities, greater access to medical facilities, and more opportunity for professional contact.It is unclear to what extent patients initially benefited from the changes in medicine. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on one aspect of this issue by examining the impact of physicians on mortality rates. Chapter 4 utilizes the individual physician data from Chapter 3 to assess whether variation in physician counts explain variation in infant and non-infant mortality rates across counties. Estimates indicate that physicians were still unable to reduce mortality in the early 1920's. Chapter 5 focuses on the impact on maternal mortality resulting from the transition of childbirth during the first half of the 20th Century from the home to the hospital setting. Using hospital beds as a proxy for medical inputs, regression analysis revealed that the transition may have contributed to more maternal deaths until the introduction of sulfa drugs in the late 1930's.